The reason why student debt is basically unheard of in Denmark since college is free (although to make that happen, the Danish government poses high taxation towards citizens like they do in order to maintain stable social security nets like subsidised healthcare and public housing, also why they have less homelessness).
Mainly Danish, Swiss and European citizens are eligible to study without stressing over student debt upon graduation. It stems from this: Danish government is more on for the people while American government is more on caring about themselves plus nepotism on the side (MORE & HIGHER TAXES TOO ON TOP OF THAT).
The numbers can be pretty crazy - but yeah it’s a complex hellscape of excessive prices combined with student aid designed to extract the most from every student.
My state is covering tuition at its public universities for people below a certain income. After federal subsidies. But you still need to cover room and board. Meanwhile the list price is higher than the Ivy League school I went to many years ago.
But the school my youngest really wanted, has huge subsidies almost half the cost, yet wanted us to come up with $50k/year.
But there’s also a cultural thing where college became almost expected, regardless of what you wanted to do in life. If you only look at it as a financial investment there are many scenarios where it will never pay off or the desired job is too low an income to pay it off. Of course people complain about poor choices in spending when the real problem is thinking of college merely as a financial investment. But college is a good thing if it helps people learn and think, regardless whether there is a direct payoff